Port Adelaide proved it can match it with the AFL’s best but not for the four quarters

PORT Adelaide has proved it can match it with the very best teams in the competition but that proof comes with a caveat — that it is for part of matches.

Paddy Ryder jumps over the top of Scott Lycett.

PORT Adelaide has proved it can match it with the very best teams in the competition but that proof comes with a caveat — that it is for part of matches.

The Power was ground into the hard surface by West Coast, a team that hasn’t lost since Round 1, for two and a half quarters and looked like they would leave the new Perth Stadium with long faces.

They had been outdone in almost every area and significantly, in intensity and desperation.

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But the Port Adelaide that can so thrill crowds at Adelaide Oval found a switch when it was down by 55 points half-way through the third quarter and there were parts of the crowd that had already retired to the nearest bar at the plush and the sun-drenched venue.

The Power finished the third quarter with consecutive goals from Jack Watts, Sam Gray, Riley Bonner and Charlie Dixon and a couple of them really caught the eye.

Dixon, whose confidence seems to be up and down when it comes to set shots, cooly slotted his — under pressure and from a bit of an angle — and Bonner underlined how good a kick his is.

Jack Darling marks against Jack Hombsch and Dougal Howard.

He wheeled around a long way outside 50 and casually kicked it from around 55 metres, looking neither like he had extended himself or given the kick the air shots from that distance generally require.

The fourth quarter begin in a similar vein, Paddy Ryder fights furiously to win the first ruck against Nic Naitanui, the Power hustle it forward and it ends up with Jack Watts on a wing, who finds Ryder who has taken off, who gives to the speedy Steven Motlop who slots the goal.

All of a sudden there are only four goals in it and the margin of 55 in the third quarter has been more than halved.

The biggest change? That Port played with desperation.

But as good as the Power was from the half-way mark of the third quarter, it will also have to reflect on what had happened before tat.

The thing that will hurt the Power players is the stark realisation that as it stands, with the up-and-down football they are playing, they are a long way away from it.

Aidyn Johnson celebrates a goal.

What’s worse, there are so many areas in which Port seemed to lack.

The first half had been horror viewing for the Port Adelaide coach’s box.

Ken Hinkley had Ryder back and he did some nice things both in the ruck and around the ground, but while he is building up form and fitness he wasn’t much of a match for Naitanui and Scott Lycett.

The WA pair, predictably, decided to run him into the ground as quickly as possible by taking him to every corner of the big ground and then take advantage of a tiring Ryder and pinch-hitters Justin Westhoff and Dixon.

The differences between the two sides were glaring in so many areas.

In the forward line, West Coast’s Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling are playing with rich confidence regardless of the opposition while Port Adelaide is battling.

Dixon takes a good grab and nobody can question his work rate and effort but his confidence seems to have taken a whack when it comes to set shots and he doesn’t get much help.

Jack Watts was barely sighted while there was still some life left in the game — he had one kick by half time — and little Jake Neade was still looking for his first dob.

Scott Lycett is tackled by Ollie Wines.

It wasn’t entirely their fault.

The Power spent much of the summer trying to improve its link work between the midfield and the forward line but there is much work to do in the area.

It is not particularly sharp, tends to go wide rather than to the dangerous areas in front of goals and let the Eagles run the ball out of the backline and create time after time.

It was as though they weren’t even worried when the Power won the clearances; they knew they’d get it back.

The only area where you’d say Port Adelaide was a patch on a top team was in defence.

Tom Jonas is having a super season and some of his work on the opposition key forwards was first rate and Brad Ebert, the veteran who began his career at West Coast, barely plays a bad game and runs all day.

One who had gone the other way was also embarrassing as the skilled Willie Rioli, who was taken from the SANFL, was hugely influential.

But for all of those negatives that will be scrutinised so closely, the Power clearly has the gun powder to match it with the best — and put that on display to almost bring life in a match that had already been on ice.